Tuesday, Feb 13, 12-1PMEvent: Best Practices: Illinois Online Recruiting SystemLocation: EnterpriseWorks Conference Room 130About the Event: Come learn about the University of Illinois' new online recruiting system Handshake with Career Services. It is a free system for employers to recruit from the University of Illinois. Lunch will be served. First come, first served.Sponsor: Research Park

Thursday, Feb 15, 12-1PMEvent: Lunar New YearLocation: EnterpriseWorks AtriumAbout the Event: Join us as we celebrate the year of the Dog and network with your Research Park colleagues as we enjoy a yummy lunch buffet. First come, first served. The Lunar New Year is celebrated in China, Korea, Tibet, Vietnam and Mongolia with various different traditions.Sponsor: Research Park

Friday, Feb 16, 12-1PMEvent: Ethereum MeetupLocation: EnterpriseWorks AtriumAbout the Event: Join us on the third Friday of every month to learn about and discuss various topics related to Ethereum, blockchain, smart contracts and digital cryptocurrencies.Sponsor: Ethereum Meetup and Research Park

Tuesday, Feb 27, 8AM-12PMEvent: USDA SBIR Workshop at EnterpriseWorksLocation: EnterpriseWorks Conference Room 130About the Event: Nationally recognized SBIR / STTR consultant Jim Greenwood will be presenting a half day workshop focusing on SBIR funding specific to the United States Agriculture Department (USDA). The workshop is free; however, registration is required. Breakfast will be served. RSVP at:go.illinois.edu/SBIR_USDA. Please contact Marissa Siero at siebel2@illinois.edu with any questions.Sponsor: EDA and the Illinois University Incubator Network

Tuesday, Feb 27, 5:30-7PMEvent: Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit ReceptionLocation: EnterpriseWorksAbout the Event: Join us for the Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit Reception, where attendees will have the opportunity to meet and network with speakers and guests attending the Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit on Wednesday, February 28.Sponsor: Research Park/College of ACES

Wednesday, Feb 28, All DayEvent: Agriculture Technology Innovation SummitLocation: I-Hotel and Conference CenterAbout the Event: Thought leaders from the University of Illinois Research Park, industry, and academia will come together for the third annual AgTech Summit to create, develop, and build connections between entrepreneurs, industry, and growers, which is a key component to implementing innovation in agriculture. This event will take place on February 28, 2018 the I-Hotel and Conference Center in Champaign. If you are interested in sponsorship opportunities or speaking opportunities at the 2018 Agriculture Technology Innovation Summit, please contact Laura Bleill at lwbleill@illinois.edu. Register at go.researchpark.illinois.edu/AgTech.Sponsor: Research Park/College of ACES

Friday, March 2, 12-1PMEvent: Data Science User GroupLocation: EnterpriseWorks AtriumAbout the Event: We’re continuing our local user group to foster collaboration and learning in the area of data science. We'll be sending out the planned agenda a week ahead of time. For more information, visit: https://www.meetup.com/CU-DSUG/. Sponsor: Research Park & Oath

Tuesday, March 6, 12-1PMEvent: EIR Workshop with Harlee Sorkin: Crafting Messages That StickLocation: EnterpriseWorks Room 130About the Event: Learn more about creating effective messages that stick with the audience and inspire action from EIR Harlee Sorkin at EnterpriseWorks. These messages will help when talking to potential customers, investors, or other stakeholders for your growing startup.

Tuesday, March 13, 4-7PMEvent: Research Park Career FairLocation: I-Hotel and Conference CenterAbout the Event: The Career Fair is a great way for students who are specifically interested in working in the Research Park to meet with employers, both startups and corporate operations. Meet graduate and undergraduate students seeking internship and career opportunities in engineering, business, and technology. Raise awareness of your company. Learn more about additional recruiting opportunities at the University of Illinois. To learn more about our Career Fair, watch a video about our 2016 event.Sponsor: Research Park

RESEARCH PARK ANNOUNCEMENTS

Faculty Experts-in-Residence Program Expands: Welcome Dr. Jana Diesner and Dr. Eric SnodgrassThe Research Park is proud to announce the expansion of the Faculty Experts in Residence program to incorporate design thinking, data science, weather risk, supply chain, and Natural Language Processing and Social Computing. The subject matter experts are available to corporations and startups on an ad hoc basis. We are excited to welcome Dr. Eric Snodgrass as the Weather Risk Expert-in-Residence and Dr. Jana Diesner as the Natural Language Processing and Social Computing Expert-in-Residence. For more on the Faculty Experts in Residence, including bios and how to reach them, please visit:http://researchpark.illinois.edu/resources/faculty-experts-residence

Applications for iVenture 4 (2018-2019) is Now OpenThe iVenture Accelerator is the educational accelerator for top student startups at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The deadline to apply for Wave 2 is Monday, Feb. 26at 11:59 pm. More information and the application can be found at: http://iventure.illinois.edu/index.php/apply/.

RESEARCH PARK JOB BOARDInterested in working for Research Park? Check out our Job Board for available full-time, part-time, and internship positions. New openings are added regularly.

NEW RESEARCH PARK TENANTS

Monsanto Celebrates Opening of New Innovation Center Monsanto (NYSE: MON), a global agriculture company headquartered in St. Louis, and The Climate Corporation, a subsidiary of Monsanto, have opened the Monsanto Innovation Center at the University of Illinois Research Park. When fully staffed, the Monsanto Innovation Center will employ more than two dozen students who will enhance and augment a robust agricultural innovation portfolio with additional enabling capabilities like IT, data science and engineering. The Monsanto Innovation Center is located in 1904 Innovation Center on the first floor. More on this story here.

AGCO Opens Acceleration Center in Research ParkThe University of Illinois and AGCO (NYSE: AGCO) announced January 25 the opening of the AGCO Acceleration Center at University of Illinois Research Park. The Acceleration Center will advance technology innovation for AGCO’s grain, seed processing, swine and poultry production equipment brands, which include GSI, Cimbria, AP and Cumberland. At the Center, University of Illinois undergraduate and graduate students will be employed year-round to further the company’s capabilities in areas such as data science, web and mobile development, and machine learning. AGCO is located in 2001 S. First Street on the second floor. More on this story here.

Brunswick Officially Opens Illini Joint Explorations in Technology LabBrunswick Corporation (NYSE: BC) recently celebrated the grand opening of new quarters for what has been known as the Brunswick Innovation Laboratory in the Research Park at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. But with its new building, the lab also now has a new name - the Brunswick I-JET Lab. I-JET Lab is the first tenant in the new Mixed Use Building at 1904 S. First St. Read the full original story here.

NEW ENTERPRISEWORKS TENANTS

Hatch Ag Group: Headed by serial entrepreneur Chris Harbourt, Hatch Ag is a business focused in agriculture, connecting great ideas with bright minds, entrepreneurs, and business savvy. Chris has been part of two graduates of EnterpriseWorks. https://www.hatch.ag/

iBioCat: Focuses on the development, validation and licensing of advanced biorefinery solutions for the production of biofuels, feed, food, pre/probiotics, enzymes and biobased chemicals from commodity crops. Founders are Charles Abbas and Dan Fanselow, both of whom are recently retired industry chemists from ADM and 3M, respectively. http://www.ibiocat.net/

SimBioSys: Joe Peterson and John Cole are PhD graduates are developing novel computational tools for biomedical researchers that integrate large biological and histology datasets (genomics, transcriptomics, metabolomics) to provide new insight into the behavior and prognosis of cancers. More about this startup from IGB.

NEW ENTERPRISEWORKS AFFILIATES

Agricultural Capital Advisors (ACA): College of ACES faculty Bruce Sherrick is building out a loan sourcing and matching service along with automated desktop appraisal technologies for agriculture to take advantage of modern information technologies that exist in other lending platforms but that have thus far remained isolated in agricultural markets.

drgnFLI: Founded by two members of the C-U community, drgnFLI is a financial technology startup democratizing investment strategy and financial literacy to the people by employing cutting edge machine learning techniques to help potential investors make the best possible choices.

Hybrid Information Technologies (HIT): Founded by School of Architecture faculty, Abbas Aminmansour, HIT specializes in developing online tools in structural engineering for both academic and professional practice communities. HIT’s software allows users of all levels to design structural components intuitively and intelligently with outputs that are not available with any other software.

Lateral Labs & Research: University of Illinois at Chicago alum, Mat Bujalski, and his partner Dr. Izabela Zawisza have founded Lateral Labs which develops and distributes cosmetics and cosmeceuticals. Their focus is bringing cutting edge research to provide cosmetics with powerful health and beauty benefits. Their first product prevents allergic skin reactions to nickel.

EnterpriseWorks Startup Snooz Reinvents the Noise MachineSNOOZ’s noise machine, developed with the assistance of many Research Park mentors, gets a ringing endorsement from Bloomberg BusinessWeek. More here.

EnterpriseWorks Startup FruitVaccine Changing the World of VaccinationsFounders tell Smile Politely that their long term goal, “is to not only create an edible RSV vaccine, but to develop many different edible vaccines for different viruses.” More here.

EarthSense Discusses Technology in AgrinewsEarthSense CEO and founder, Chinmay Soman sat down with Agrinews to discuss his company, and the new EarthSense robot, TerraSentia, that provides field phenotyping from the ground level up. More here.

EnterpriseWorks Graduate Building Major Manufacturing Facility in ChinaHeyGears, an EnterpriseWorks student startup graduate, is building a 3D printing Research and Development facility in Guangdong, China. Formerly OmniEars, the company has created a range of five different in-ear products of wearable technology that operate through Bluetooth. More here.

EnterpriseWorks Graduate Inprentus Completes Series A RoundInprentus has officially completed Series A Round, raising $2.5 Million with help from investors like Flyover Capital, Serra Ventures, and other new investors. Read more here.

IntelinAir and Aptimmune Named Startups to WatchEnterpriseWorks startups IntelinAir and Aptimmune were recently named two of seven Ag Tech start-ups to watch in 2018 by Agriculture.com. IntelinAir was founded in 2015 to help farmers make more cost-efficient and smart decisions based on aerial imagery. Aptimmune focuses solely on swine vaccines and the prevention of two major diseases: porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome virus (PRRSV) and influenza. Read the full story here.

Agrible to Launch Retailer Services in 2018Agrible is set to launch retailer services in the new year to meet market challenges head on. The new retailer services will provide a digital, two-way communication system for the agriculture community. These services make the relationships between growers, retailers, sales personnel, and agronomy and agriculture seamless. Read more about these new services here.

SimBioSys Inspired by Fox Family Entrepreneurship ProgramNew EnterpriseWorks startup SimBioSys, Inc., was formed with ideas from Illinois PhD student doctoral research in computational biology that focuses on creating technology to peer into diseased tissues and see how cells interact. Read more about this technology and how this company got its foot in the door at the link below. Learn more about how this technology works here.

Trudy Kriven of KeaneTech Shares Plans for her Technology Transition StartupTrudy Kriven, CEO of EnterpriseWorks Affiliate startup KeaneTech, talks with the News-Gazette about its Small Business Innovation Research grant from the Army Corps of Engineers, geopolymer materials, and the opportunities and challenges of having a technology transition company. Read the full original story here.

AWARE Program Funds and Connects Female EntrepreneursAWARE (Advancing Women and UnderRepresented Entrepreneurs) is now on its third year, and with the combined efforts of Research Park and the Technology Entrepreneur Center, has helped fund and connect women through I-Corps, SBIR, and the Cozad New Venture Competition. Read the full original story here.

NSF I-Corps at Illinois Helps Startups Raise Over $42 Million in the Past Four YearsOver the course of four years, 120 NSF I-Corps program teams at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign have raised more than $42 million in external funding. These numbers, released by the Technology Entrepreneurship Center, reveal that $11 million has come from SBIR grants, $28 million from venture capitalists or angel investors, and $3 million from other sources. Read the full original story here.

PhotoniCare’s Ryan Nolan Discusses the ClearView device with the News-GazetteRyan Nolan, co-founder of PhotoniCare, was featured in The News-Gazette for his work building medical tools, specifically, the ClearView device. Read the full original story here.

Samuel Walder of Trala Featured on the News-Gazette Wired-InSamuel Walder, University of Illinois graduate and founder of the student startup Trala, discusses its app that helps violin and viola players learn music faster with fewer errors by tracking practice time and providing feedback by providing sheet music and providing instant feedback to the musicians after they are done playing. Read the full original story here.

CAMPUS EVENTS OF INTEREST

Thursday, Feb. 22, 9:30AM-3:30PMEvent: Civil & Environmental Engineering Job Fair – Spring 2018Location: Crane Bay of Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, 205 North Matthews Avenue, UrbanaAbout the Event: SPRING 2018 JOB FAIR REGISTRATION NOW OPEN(Note: entering postings into Handshake does not register you for the job fair; you must fill out the CEE at Illinois registration form to reserve a spot) Spots will be limited to 70 tables. Registration is on a first-come, first-served basis. To register and for more information, visit: http://cee.illinois.edu/corporate/cee-job-fair.

Thursday, March 1, 9AM-4:30PMEvent: Career XPO 2018Location: I-Hotel and Conference CenterAbout the Event: During these two days, employers from across the country representing the fields of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning will come to the University of Illinois campus to showcase their firms, build relationships with the university, and interview potential candidates for both summer and full-time employment. For more information please see: http://arch.illinois.edu/degrees/career-xpo.

Friday, March 1, 9AM-12PMEvent: Career XPO 2018Location: I-Hotel and Conference CenterAbout the Event: During these two days, employers from across the country representing the fields of Architecture and Urban and Regional Planning will come to the University of Illinois campus to showcase their firms, build relationships with the university, and interview potential candidates for both summer and full-time employment. For more information please see: http://arch.illinois.edu/degrees/career-xpo.

April 4-6, 2018Event: University of Illinois Web ConferenceLocation: I-Hotel and Conference CenterAbout the Event: If you work with the web as a designer, developer, social media marketer, content manager, etc., don't miss out on the University of Illinois Web Conference this April. It's an affordable opportunity for great professional development. http://webcon.illinois.edu

LOCAL/REGIONAL EVENTS OF INTEREST

Parkland College Leadership Series, January-December 2018

Area business owners, managers and supervisors are invited to take part in a leadership series hosted by Parkland College Business Training and Community Education. Led by successful business owner and corporate trainer Steven Welland, the 14-course Parkland College Leadership Certificate Series will be offered January–December 2018 and is designed to build and develop the skills of extraordinary leadership. For more information on the Parkland College Leadership Series, call Business Training and Community Education at 217/351-2235.

2018 Midwest Women in Tech Conference, March 2018, ChicagoThe MWiT Conference is the region’s women in tech event of the year. The conference features presentations from an elite group of successful female founders, investors and leaders. These role models will present their views and ideas in presentations that advance women in technology and leadership. More info: http://midwestwomenintech.com/

The Chicago Tech Summit, Spring 2018The most interesting innovations are found where disciplines, industries, and cultures intersect. The CHICAGO TECH SUMMIT was designed to spur those innovations forward here in Chicago. The summit will tackle technology trends that are having an impact on the local ecosystem and showcase how some of Chicago’s best technology companies are scaling their businesses. For more info, click HERE.

2018 Gateway to Innovation Conference, St. Louis, May 16Maintaining a competitive edge with innovative IT is critical for companies and organizations of all sizes as we all are tasked to do more with less. The annual Gateway to Innovation Conference provides a unique opportunity for our region’s IT leadership to gather, to explore ways to maintain a competitive advantage in this global economy, and to grow the IT industry in the St. Louis region. We hope the event provides you many opportunities to learn, engage with other IT professionals, and gain inspiration from regional successes and our national speakers. Info: http://www.g2iconference.com/index.php

Internet of Manufacturing, Chicago, June 5-7, 2018 Over three days, connect with others now ready to drive their digital and IoT-powered business forward. In addition to a handful of innovative solution providers who we have identified as key disruptors in this technology-led market change. More info:http://www.internetofbusiness.net/manufacturingchicago/

The InfoAg ConferenceThe InfoAg Conference returns to the Union Station in St. Louis. Make plans to attend July 17 - 19, 2018. For more than 20 years, InfoAg has been the leading event in precision agriculture. More info here.

SAVE THE DATE

Spring SBIR Workshop Series: Please join us for our three-part series on applying for Small Business Innovation Research grants.Date: Tuesday, 4/10Time: 12-1PMLocation: EnterpriseWorks Conference Room 130SBIR 101 will be presented by EnterpriseWorks Entrepreneur-in-Residence Jed Taylor, where he will teach the basics of the SBIR application process.

Date: Tuesday, 4/24Time: 12-1PMLocation: EnterpriseWorks Conference Room 130In part two, a National Science Foundation SBIR Program Manager will join us via videoconference to provide insight on best practices for applicants, and will answer any questions you have about the SBIR program.

Catalyze: A Professional Networking EventJoin us on Tuesday, May 22, from 5:30-7PM for Catalyze: A Professional Networking Event. Do you want to build your professional network with the more than 100 tech companies clustered around Champaign-Urbana, ranging from Fortune 500 companies to startups. Catalyze is the perfect opportunity to do just that with drinks, snacks, and conversation in a more informal environment than a typical career fair. While not a career fair, we encourage you to bring resumes and business cards. No preregistration required. More information can be found here.

2018 Big Data SummitJoin us on Thursday, November 8, at the I-Hotel and Conference Center for the 2018 Big Data Summit. This interactive conference offers participants the opportunity to learn and share knowledge about key aspects of big data and its business applications through dynamic panels, inspiring keynote presentations, and networking opportunities. For information can be found at: http://researchpark.illinois.edu/bigdatasummit.

SBIR and STTR ANNOUNCEMENTSExperienced SBIR professionals have all been contracted by EnterpriseWorks to assist companies with SBIR and STTR applications with free consulting services to East Central Illinois applicants. Request technical assistance here. Our next workshop series will start in April. The following agencies have open solicitations: Information on open solicitations is available at https://www.sbir.gov/solicitation-listing/open.HHS Funding Opportunities are ongoing. Click here.